Michael Kainatsky is the Managing Partner of S4 Search Partners. They help companies hire the best sales and operations people for the workwear apparel, facilities services, and light industrial sectors.

In this episode, you’ll learn about their key differentiators such as:

They only recruit for industries they’ve actually worked in and deeply understand

They help clients solve root causes rather than symptoms of their recruiting process problems

They charge a flat–fee, so they’re not incented to try to pump up salaries

Is your work aligned with your core nature?

When your work aligns with your Core Nature/Innate Characteristics, you operate in your "genius zone."

Well, should we put “S4 Search Partners” is a Boutique Firm focused on giving about your talent to the Work Wear, Apparel, so many services industries as I’d say as a whole. But really we focus on more of Sales and Operations Roles and everything that really goes into Sales and Operations Role. So we’re kind of like the master of one space. We try not to delve too much into things we don’t know and things that we don’t do well. But our focus really is what we as my business partner and I have actually. So Jason, we’ve been on the past jobs we’re familiar with and jobs. We have an intuition feeling for most of the types of roles that we help our clients fill where they essentially can’t do it on their own.

We are industry focused. We’re a newer firm. We’re only been around for maybe 4 years. I joined the firm just under 3 years ago. And the way we were able to see some very quick success and results is focusing on a space that A.) We both worked in. And B.) We know very well because we worked in it. There was a major need for good recruiting because the turnover tends to be higher than any other space that pertains to sales, particularly. I’d say anywhere in the world in any way.

Oh! my journey, ironically I’m here today kind of because of all of the career mistakes I made getting out of school. So I made a lot of career mistakes, jumped around basically to proverbial, I guess you could say I was a little bit of a job hopper, but not because I was a job hopper, but because situation forced me to, because I realized early on and I had a big problem with working in organizations that I was not aligned with or that they didn’t have run with integrity and therefore it didn’t take me a long time to figure out which organizations were and were not going to be a great fit. And it wasn’t a big part of my career. I’d say the first four years of my career, I did some, you know, some soul searching. But right around 2009, I joined universe.

I got an opportunity to be a sales leader. They took a big shot on me. I had no previous experience. It was more of like they had a location that was struggling and needed to get some help. And they kind of looked at me and said, well, we probably couldn’t do worse, so let’s see what happens for all, you know, for all intents and purposes. So they gave me a shot and it was an opportunity for me to exceed expectations because I obviously if I had failed, I don’t think anybody would be surprised. But the fact that I did not did surprise everyone and that kind of catapulted me into the next, you know, space. And the next kind of part of my career, which was senior leadership and, you know, come full circle five years later I reconnected with my business partner and he had also gone the path of recruiting.

I had done completely, I would never want it to be a recruiter just based on my own experiences and what I’ve done in my career. And just the leadership style I had going into a recruiting field was just an obvious choice. I fell into it.

Right! So you really leveraged your experience sitting in the seats and walking in the shoes of the type of people that you place and work with. So that gives you a real edge for your clients and candidates.

It allows me to be able to not only look at the perspective of the candidate sitting in the seat of the hiring manager, which I’ve sat in, but also the perspective of the candidate whom I’ve been many times myself and understand what they go through and what it’s like, especially in 2020 recruiting and job search, what it looks like and how it’s evolved.

Now I look at everything from a not a problem perspective, but from an opportunity perspective, I have always said revenue hides a multitude of sense. So companies that are doing really well, what they’re able to do is they just try to go on top of what they’re already doing and increase somewhat marginally 1% 2% 3% a year. And once you become publicly traded, as long as you’re doing 2% a year, all your shareholders are pretty happy. As long as there’s no going backwards. And what they don’t actually realize is how much money and opportunity they are leaving on the table by just following that status quo, which companies are being, you know, having been there for a while.

They’re not the founders, they’re just the people that have brought in generationally to continue the flow. You know, it’s Hey, this is the way it’s always been done. Follow the process. Okay. And they’re not incentivized to re-imagine anything and really dig deep into the problems that exist. So everything is going status quo without any major changes. And as long as you see those 1, 2, 3% a year, no one questions and we do better.

Ironically, an organization like that, that sends to run in the status quo and doesn’t really reevaluate everything they’ve done and start from zero based on as starting the company today when it’s been happening is they end up struggling in a good economy because in a good economy, the people they normally would be able to attract are going to the other place. They’re able to pay much more money than they’re willing to.

That’s exactly right! And then what’s interesting is when there’s a tough economy, they’re doing really well because they’re the safe one that doesn’t go anywhere. And companies that are, they got money in a good economy, they’re able to throw it around. Well, they’re no longer dishing it out because they don’t have the infrastructure to support a town, a down economy. So what they do is they remove all those people and stop hiring and all those people who are normally going for more money. Now we’re going to that.

1.) Take a company that believes things are going fairly well and improve upon it. You know, it’s very easy to come in, whereas everything is completely horrible and have results because everything’s already bad. I like to come into an organization that believes that they already have things that are going well, they’re doing well, there’s been historical successes and show them how to go even above and beyond that. But more importantly, and I really believe this is more very, I think, much more my core. I’m a candidate advocate. What I do is for the candidates, I want to give them a voice. And I believe oftentimes, especially those that are often discriminated against, maybe there’s a, you know, age discrimination you know, generation discrimination, like the millennials are all lazy, those kinds of things. You’d be surprised how many people tell me that. And then I say, you know, I’m a millennial.

Exactly! Right! So you can’t just say determine who. So you have to stop saying all generation, you know, millennials and all people over 50 and you can’t do that. I mean, you know, because it’s just not the way it is. And this is what I’m all about. Helping the candidates make a better decision, better opportunity for themselves and show them the way of finding that great new opportunity instead of following the old, you know, cornflakes and breadcrumbs that they’ve usually been used to.

They don’t have the ability to be proactive because of budget constraints, any hiring decisions made and not all clients. I say really big companies that are just running with a process and everything is in a big box that people are constrained and proactive. I have an empty, you know, role. There’s a vacancy I needed filled and I need to fill it as soon as possible. So they don’t have the opportunity on top of everything else they do because they’re not recruiters. Their job is to lead and manage a team. They don’t have the opportunity to be very smart about how they hire. So they, and oftentimes they lack the gut instinct and the intuition of what a good, higher risk because, let’s be honest, especially in sales, they’re all Oscar winning actors and they all are going to interview fairly well because they’re salespeople.

It’s very difficult to hire good salespeople that are going to be performing good once you hire them. They all are the best salespeople in the interview. It’s amazing how many great interviews I have and then they show up for the interview and I had feedback and I say, I have no idea who you interviewed. You sure it’s the same person? Yes, absolutely! Here’s the resume. I say, I have no idea what that person is.

It’s exactly, it’s not only allowing them the first part, right to finding the person they probably wouldn’t have found because let’s be honest, between you and me and everyone else who knows what recruiting is, companies aren’t doing active outreach there.

Exactly! I find them the people that don’t know they want a new job and they, Oh no! They want to work at universe. Whereas the PE jobs they post hypothetically. And this goes, I’m just using universe as an example. But you know, it could be for any of the clients we work with you could post a job online and wait for people to apply. Now you have a captive audience and the people that did get interested and then you pick from that, those not necessarily are the best people out there and it’s just the best people out of what you have.

Right! And I don’t, I don’t have a problem with active candidates at all, but history and numbers, which I believe both statistics say that it’s always a better longevity, higher when it’s a passive candidate that you have a conversation and get them interested rather than someone that’s actively looking and applying to jobs. It’s just psychology. If they’re applying to a job, but you, they’re applying with 10 other companies, if they take the job with you, have they removed themselves from all the job boards and have they stopped fielding inquiries?

You know, it’s, I think it’s my relentless desire to actually help the clients and the candidates, even if they don’t realize they need the help or if they themselves can’t acknowledge where the help is actually needed. I want to show them exactly where their weaknesses lie and show them how to improve that strength rather than just be another recruiter who says you need a candidate. Here’s five, hopefully you pick one and I get paid. I’m not driven by money. To me the success to me is really what success is a candidate saying thank you so much. That was the best recruiting process I’ve ever gone through. When did they get the job? And then the client’s saying to me, thank you so much for finding that person. We would have never found that person and even been able to convince them to come onboard. So those to me are successes.

Exactly! And that’s what to me, when I started recruiting I, the first thing I convinced myself was I could care less how much money I make doing it. Because I knew the only way to be successful is to not follow the money. Because that’s how so many recruiters bought the better. Chasing the grand slams, the home runs, all they want is the money that they stopped actually realizing what they’re doing. Right? I mean, imagine recruiters are like psychologists. Imagine a psychologist who works with, you know, maybe it’s a marital counseling or maybe even a child psychologist. Imagine they’re like, I’m just going to see as many kids as I can and just get paid as much as I can. What’s the quality of each patient in that experience they have with that doctor.

Well, the first thing is I’ve yet to come across a recruiter that has had in a very short amount of time the types of successes that I’ve had at various levels of various organizations. And you know, I’m not an industry. You know, I talked to a lot of people that I’ve been doing X for 20 years, I’ve worked for this company and then that company, and they’re all in the same space. I’ve worked in 3 or 4 different spaces, learn those spaces as well. So I’m very adaptable. So I’m able to understand the various amount of candidates from different perspectives, whether they be 65 and it’s the last job or they’re just graduating college and have no clue what they want to do. I am able to correlate and relate the information to them so that they can understand it in a way that makes it very easy for them to digest and make decisions. I find a biggest problem in recruiting is candidates and employers failing to be able to just decide.

So we are, we’re kind of, I mean I’m sure you’re familiar with the term RPO? Run like an RPO, but are not an RPO. You know, cause our RPOs unfortunately they’re just more of outsourced organizations for efficiency through talent acquisition. But by no means do they guarantee any kind of quality in the process. They’re just making it easy for the company to bring in candidates and move them through a process. We manage everything for our clients. We do end to end, we take all the hassles out of their minds and literally all they have to do is make very small decisions along the way. Then you do Monday 2 or Friday at 3 and you can you interview him on this day or on that day, can two people be there or can only one person to be there?

And we moved the candidate through the process and our goal is to shorten the timeline for everyone because in this market it isn’t just about the decision, it’s about how quick can we get them in before you lose the candidates interest and someone else makes them an offer, you can’t make them and they’re gone. So I’ll shorten the process and make sure that I do this. My partner does this. We’re always all about keeping the interest level high and getting the answers to both parties, whether the candidates interested in the employers, not I communicate to the candidate, the candidates not interested in the employer is I communicate to the employer. But communication is our cornerstone of how we are successful and as long as that continues smoothly and consistently and the process works exceptionally well.

Right! And that’s a big thing for long-term success where you protect the reputation of your client and you build a relationship with the candidate because the communication happens, which shows respect and often that’s, I’ve seen that dropped where the person then feels like a commodity because they weren’t communicated with because that takes effort to communicate.

Well imagine you have 10 candidates that apply and candies will go through a process. You narrow down the three. What happens to those seven? How many companies do you think actually go to each candidate, either call or email, personalized response and say, thank you so much for going through the process. We’ve decided to go with someone else through the next.

Well, one of the things we started, which we did almost trying to disrupt the status quo, and again this is because I don’t come from recruiting anyone. Everyone says to me this is the industry standard. And that to me right away means, well, this is how we’ve always done things.

To me, in my mind, this is just how I’m wired. Automatically the switch goes everything they just said you need to do the opposite of that means that no one’s tested whether this truly is as successful as it should be. So if somebody’s 60 days.

It’s generational education, right? You know, 50 years ago, recruiter taught another recruiter and along the lines, whatever he taught him, those people keep teaching and then those, that knowledge spreads out.

Absolutely! So for us it’s be able to determine what recruiting, where recruiting works, but also determine where recruiting doesn’t work for both parties. And most oftentimes recruiters aren’t looking for how can they do the best for the company. They say that, but really how they operate is how can we do the best for us recruiters. So we did something, I thought it was pretty crazy and that is we gave a six month guaranteed or some of our clients for roles that they historically turnover a sectionally often two months, three months. Because being a part of that company, I understand where their processes, so I know if I give them a 60 day guarantee and their training is 90 days, how does that help them? It can’t fire somebody in training.

That’s stupid. No way you’re going to put yourself, you can’t control so many factors. And I said, well of course I can control the factors. I can control the client’s expectations. I can explain the candidates or the process and make sure that they both understand that going through this process, they’re going to be well aware of what happens and why it should. 6 months really shouldn’t be that big of an issue and it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

Here’s the thing that I’ve learned being in recruiting for years is if you have a 90 day guarantee and someone doesn’t work out at the 95th or 100th or a 107th day, you keep your fee, but your client is unhappy about it and that damages your relationship, so you really have one by doing that.

You’re not going to say, well, you know the guarantees over, sorry, because unfortunately it’s too close to really make a judgment call because you know a lot of recruiters say this unilaterally, there’s a lot of principles, but there’s one thing they all say it’s an awkward relationship. So are you going to affect the relationship? Even if you’re right and the contract says you’re right, are you still going to let that person leave five days after and not offer a free replacement? Well, that’s going to get singed into the back of everybody’s brain on the client’s side.

It’s not how our firm is structured that makes us unique. It’s the fact that we actually truly do care about the relationship. Now I know most clients, and this is something that I hear a lot that I’ve never done a will never do, is when a candidate comes into one company, what’s the guarantee that that recruiter is not sending a candidate to your two other competitors? There’s nothing. Right? They just want to maximize.

And we, and again, we do that because we’d not driven by just maximizing the candidate’s potential. We do that for the same reason. I’ve never worked for a competitor. If I’m, you asked me find me X, Y, and Z, I am literally crafting and architecting a search based on you, the manager, your location in your particular needs. So that person that I found for you is only for you. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll see if maybe there’s a fit somewhere else.

Yeah! So we, you know, we try to avoid the subjectivity of the search as, you know, that goes into it with the subjectivity of the offer stage. We know that there’s a big portion of, you know, kind of like in real estate, you know, unfortunately because the fee differentiation can go one way or the other. We don’t get involved too often A.) In the negotiation of the salary outside of somebody asking us to, and we also do a very flat fee structure where no matter what, we just create something that’s easy for the company to accept. Again, we’re not going for the standard. We’re not saying, Hey, it’s 25% this is what it is. It’s more of no matter who we get for you at this level, if it’s a manager, we’re going to do X flat fee. It’s a sales rep are going to do X flat fee and if it’s somebody else, it’s going to be another X flat fee.

So they know going into the search, no matter what they can budget whatever they do with us, no matter what they have to pay someone. And oftentimes we get to a situation where I tell people, look, if you need to come up more money in your budget to pay these people, if you really do, and it’s a matter of a couple of grand here and there, depending on the level we’ve even offered to the client to say, look, take X amount away from our feet and give it to that person. That’s how much we believe in them because we’re trying to build the trust

So here’s the thing, it’s not so much that it’s, I say very flat. I meant to say a very low flat, a big fee for what we do at the level we do. And more importantly, not so much the salary, because I don’t care about salaries. To me, if I give you a somebody and you say, this person to meet is valued at 50,000 and because he can only do so much for you, but at the same person somewhere else is valued at a hundred I only value a person based on the how much results will their hire bring to the order.

That is a really good point that someone’s market value isn’t just set based on some percentage of increase from what they’re making or some other arbitrary factor, which is how the traditional thought process works.

Exactly! I look at everything only from the results aspect. So I don’t charge something for let’s say a branch manager role and a branch manager could oversee $30 million or $40 million in revenue, very high for an outbuilding. Right? I don’t charge them. Say, Hey look, that guy’s going to bring you if he’s good, millions of dollars in revenue and other benefits, I don’t charge based on that. It’s the same flat fee and that fee is pretty low by comparison. But, and again, I get criticized for this all the time. We are not about home runs. You know, if you look at Derek Jeter versus A. Rod, if you give him 20 balls, A. Rod can hit two home runs and Jeter might strike out, give him a hundred balls. A. Rod may hit four home runs and Jeter hit 10 hits, give them a thousand Jeter hits 350 base hits or doubles and A. Rod hits 10 home runs. That’s the difference we’re looking at, right?

Most recruiters are going for those big roles and they’re trying to do five roles a quarter or four roles a quarter at 30 50 a 100 thousand dollars and they’re constantly scampering for those roles. But guess what everyone else is, because those are the roles that everybody wants a hard to fill roles that require you to do 10 15 a month. Those are the ones we’re going after and we’re so good at finding those people consistently.

And that’s a whole shift from what people believe is realistic. So as we’re winding this down, Michael, I’m always fascinated with the value of failures, mistakes, difficulties in someone being able to learn, grow and become more effective. Do you have a particular failure or obstacle you’ve overcome that’s been pivotal to your success?

You know, I failures. I have many, I have so many of them. But the thing about failures to me is I don’t actually look at failure as a failure unless I fail and stop. So if I stop, I fail and go, wow, you know, I fell off that bicycle, that hurt, put the bicycle in the closet and go, huh! That hurt. I don’t want to do that again. That’s a failure. But if I felt the bicycle fixed the tires and put a band aid on and got on it, that’s not a failure. I just learned how not to fall again. I don’t look at failures as really anything except just a bunch of lessons that lead me to the ultimate success.

I think that my biggest failure was in the beginning of my career making moves. You know, what I didn’t have in the beginning of my career truly was a career mentor. I’ve never really had one that said, look, you should do this. Don’t do that. This’ll affect should this way. So what’s made me really successful is actually remembering what I lacked all those years before I got into leadership and said what I wish I would have had when I was 25 years old. I wish that I had a guy that said this to me at that moment when I was like, do I go left or right? And I couldn’t ask anyone because the truth is that I’ve always considered myself to be just on a different level that at age I probably wouldn’t have trusted anyone anyway. I wouldn’t have believed that because I would have not thought that they had enough expertise from understanding of me to make that true determination and requests.

Now I realize that I had a lot of people that could have guided me, but no one that would have guided me in the right direction had I not made the mistakes myself or learn from those mistakes. Now they can go back to people that age and say, trust me, I know a 1000% what you’re going to do and where are you going to be in three years if you do this, I’m giving you this free advice and only reason I’m doing it is because I never had it take it for what it’s worth, but trust me, I’ve been there and you have two options that are going to happen here and most oftentimes it’s what I made a decision over more money. But who the hell knows what will happen or stay where you are but more guarantee for consistent growth. Luckily for me, while I was playing checkers from 23 24 25 26 I started really playing chess from 28 to 35 and when that, when I figured the email, I catapulted not only my success in organizations, but I quadrupled my own income would a period of two years just by making certain moves that got me to a threshold I don’t think I ever thought I would reach.

So that’s really helped you in terms of what you can offer to your clients and candidates. That’s really those difficulties and what you might call hardheadedness and things like that has been a real asset in terms of what you can offer now?

No, I think it’s, it really stems back from, you know, a very, not a very unique story. Immigrant family came here when I was seven years old from Russia. We literally, you know, they say only what you have in your hands. We actually lost everything on the plane. We were robbed. So we literally came with nothing. I mean people say, well we came with nothing. No, we came with nothing because we got robbed. So what it’s allowed me to do is A.) I have no connection on a sentimental level, any material possessions because I’ve realized that they don’t mean anything.

I’m gonna go, I’m all about people, relationships and helping. And I’ve done this to a fault for so long that falling into naturally this relationship, business of recruiting, it’s just, I got pushed into it. I would’ve never said I want to be a recruiter, but everything I’ve done in my life has led me to this point. Very simply, you know, and I read a book recently by Tim Grover, Michael Jordan’s Trainer and books called “Relentless”. I don’t know if you’ve read it or not it. And he basically said, “My Biggest Failure Was My Success”. He was a great basketball player, had a bunch of injuries, couldn’t recover from them, but realize, you know what, I’m going to take my injuries and go and help players in the same position recover and actually get them back. And that was his failure became his greatest success.

And that is my experience is that is the truth for most people, if they’re willing to take a look at it that way. So as we wrap up what is your website to share with listeners that are interested in contacting you?

Yeah! our website is www dot S 4 better ask number 4 Search Partners dot com. We’re also on Facebook. We’re on LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn is probably the best way to get us. You know, I’m, I try to be as effective as possible on LinkedIn. It’s always been something that I’ve believed in a great, it’s a great community. And it’s unfortunate that I feel like engagement has been down on LinkedIn, but it’s not because of people that are using it. I think people are just getting so annoyed by the fact that there’s no barrier to entry and recruiters are bombarding everyone now. Nobody wants to respond to anything anymore because they don’t know the difference between what’s good and what’s bad. So they ignore everybody. So LinkedIn has become, unfortunately not what it was 5 years ago.

And I have a feeling, Michael, you’re going to find ways to capitalize that on that, to bring more value your candidates and clients. Michael, it’s been a real pleasure. And I appreciate you sharing some very heartfelt thoughts and experiences that bring value to the people that you work with. Thank you so much. Michael.